


the living are hungry.

by Prettything_uglylie



Category: The 100 (TV), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Apocalypse, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Dark, Dubious Morality, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Multi, Murder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Zombie Apocalypse, Psychological Trauma, Tears
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:06:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25995700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prettything_uglylie/pseuds/Prettything_uglylie
Summary: Following multiple dynamic groups, this explores a descent into savagery, survivalism and surviving your own savagery in the times of a fucking zombie apocalypse.
Relationships: Abby Griffin/Jake Griffin, Bellamy Blake/John Murphy, Clarke Griffin/Lexa, Echo/Hope Diyoza, Emori/Harper McIntyre, Finn Collins/Wells Jaha, Gustus/John Murphy (The 100), Indra/Marcus Kane, Jasper Jordan/Maya Vie, Luna/Raven Reyes, Monty Green/Nathan Miller, Octavia Blake/Lincoln
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. a likeness unsimilar to its own.

**Author's Note:**

> While this does not show any of the Walking Dead characters, it is heavily based off of that source material as well as a few others including Romero's Night of the Living Dead, some Zombieland and some of my own dynamic lore. I hope you enjoy it!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caught on camera is the stories of three friends before everything is tossed into the ringer of fate and chaos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like this!

**_from the recordings of augustus sallow's phone._ **

There is a boy in the first one, frozen under the pause button on the small screen but his smile is there, present and beaming up at the viewer no matter who they may be. The boy's name is John Murphy but no one would know that by looking at him, no one would know he is anything more than _lover_ , than something filmed as particularly precious as he is by Augustus. His name could be _daydream_ or _lover_ or _the one_ from the way the sunlight gleams off his dark brown hair and into the dark circles of eyeliner surrounding his sky blue eyes before falling into the swell of his smile. 

When you press the play button, the sound is loud and jostling but begins on the sign outside of a red-bricked building that most can presume to be a high school from the silhouette of everyone's high school memories. The building a red stack brick of three floors, the grey flat of the awning above the cement walkways and open within its circular pathways including the parking lot and the roundabout filled up with a blue Caravan and a silver Mustang in the video. It feels of a place well-traveled and well-lived despite the anguish often associated with the location. 

Long legs swung over the white sign, a girl with a stoic face and forest green eyes made noticeable by the braid pulling her deep brown hair back from her face. She seems to be waiting for someone, looking into the distance with the sun gleaming off her left browbone with her pink lips folded into an almost depressive frown, even as she folds the black twine of her skinny jean's broken fringe between her long fingers. 

"Where is the bastard?" The boy nicknamed Gustus by his peers and 'Gus' affectionately by his lover, captures the girl murmur even on the broken screen of his Samsung Galaxy Nexus. 

They both know who the bastard is and while Gustus is about to correct her into something more polite, he and the camera become captured in the walk of the lover, of the boy, of the paused on one as he jaunts over. 

His eyes laden in his own black warpaint and his clothes dark enough to match, his walk is full of just enough forced nonchalance that Gustus can't help but notice and note to ask about later. 

"Lex, don't break the fucking sign!" The boy shouts, cupping his hands over his face in the mimic of a megaphone but Gustus notices how they shake when he reaches up to perform the gesture and makes a note quickly to ask later. He crosses the few feet over to stand near them and in the first peek of the boy behind the camera, he presses a kiss to the lover boy's cheek that is pretended to be swatted away but is still smiled at. 

In his sole glimpse, he is but a large figure looming over the camera. Gustus is a filled-out tall boy with broad shoulders and a full-frame of muscle that tends to tower over most people and most definitely his boyfriend. His face is etched with a few different spiraling tattoos noted too obviously when put on camera but his hands are gentle and his eyes gleam at the sight of his lover. If you were to ask whatever was left of his teachers, they would spin a romantic tale of Augustus Sallows, telling how the boy is built of a tank and has the control and dogma of one but is peaceful in instinct and kind to a fault - if you asked them about John Murphy, you would not get the same positivity. 

The girl tosses him a simple middle finger and hopes down from the sign before not rudely and not politely asking Gustus' boyfriend, "What the fuck's wrong with you?" 

The lover boy, the John Murphy to those who knew of him and everyone else, smiles a sharp smile full of teeth and razor wires before snarking out, "None of your fucking business." 

But then the steadying ebony of Gustus' eyes worry into his face, swimming with unmatched concern and even without seeing him, it is known that he wears the look easily. The one paused for seems to shrug and says simply, "My mom's getting drunk again." 

That's all they needed to know - they know how Annalise Murphy becomes drunk and illogical and throws things and shouts for hours that leaves Murphy bloodied and sobbing and bruised. No one had ever said Annalise was a good mother. 

"Anyways," he pretends to dismiss with an easy smile and a wave of the hand neither of the best friends believes, "can you believe this fucking curfew shit?" 

The camera glances towards the white sign the girl had been perched on towards the slide-in black laters where it reads '7 pm curfew as to oppose the virus'.

A small virus had swept through the walls of Trikru, passing through some rather seamlessly and had not yet overtaken the more upscale areas of Arkadia yet. It had not been a large thing, not even enough for Arkadians to take it seriously, just enough for them to continue to shrug off the illness like it hadn't killed little twelve-year-old Charlotte Brown without mercy, just enough for the Arkadians to continue to drive their fancy, expensive convertibles through Trikru at all hours of the night, blaring music and acting as though people don't live in these areas. 

It had been shrugged off though, common cold and stomach bugs kill kids every year, right? It hadn't been a big deal. 

The girl's face sours, turns even angrier and more brooding as she crosses her arms over her chest and nods towards the silver Mustang before asking, "What's going on with the Arker being here?" 

Where the question should not or could not be answered by most, John Murphy's instincts have honed to know his surroundings and where some would argue out of fear, others would argue it is out of a necessity for his own survival and trauma. He shrugs, "Abby Griffin is here." 

While someone enjoying this video with no knowledge of the world and system built here prior would not know who this woman is, all three's breathing and chests are tight at the mention of the woman, are clear as to knowing who she is. 

The camera almost accidentally begins to pan to the boy, the lover boy as it follows Gustus' own gaze and standing on the hill outside of their school, the sound of cars passing just becomes too loud on the tape as though certain sounds had been muted in this unedited tape. 

The lover boy grins at the camera, the same frozen smile, before saying in a fake chipper tone, "Guess we really are fucked then!" 

The camera stops. The footage dies. The phone has stopped recording, cracked even further after this date in time, the _lover_ _boy_ still smiling at the camera when opened to Augustus Sallows' gallery. 

Two days later, John Murphy will murder his mother. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scream at me in the comments, i deserve it!


	2. a boy's best friend is his mother.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two days after Augustus Sallows' footage is filmed, there is a boy in the upstairs bathroom of his home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, this took a little too long but I'm hoping to start updating this more regularly! I hope you enjoy it!

**_august 5th._ **

Two days after Augustus Sallows' footage is filmed, there is a boy in the upstairs bathroom of his home. The boy's name is neither here or there as there will be many boys with similar stories or even the same name, a name both biblical and that means nothing - maybe it is appropriate that it all begins with a boy named John. Maybe God was the first victim. 

The boy's name is John but everyone knows him as Murphy, though not a soul could recognize him as Murphy in these last few moments before his world becomes entangled in a life much different from his own. The boy's name is John and he stares into the mirror of the bathroom down the hall from his bedroom - it's a cramped bedroom, more appropriate as a closet and originally a laundry room as Annalise hadn't wanted children but Alex had been so thrilled he and a friend had pulled all the equipment out in a day of laughter and beer. While the beer still haunts the home, laughter and most certainly, Alex, do not. 

Murphy paints a dark line over the top of his eyelid and then another beneath - one for Alex, who died trying to take care of his son in a fucked up capitalist society and the one beneath for the boy known as John who died then too, or when his mother had taken him home from his father's funeral and wrapped a claw around his throat, breath the smell of whiskey. It would not be the first time she would grab him or beat him or be angry with him. 

She made _Murphy_ just as much as the police's bullet entering his father did. 

'John' still falls insistently from Gustus' lips and some days, Murphy hates him for it - for the reminder that he is all human, flesh and blood beneath bone and fragile bone above easily torn ligaments, hates the reminder as he hates his mother's foot cracking a few ribs like she cracks beers. 

Some days the boy flinches when Augustus calls him that. 

Sometimes it makes him smile. Some days it reminds him of his father's big warm hands clasping over his head to give it a shake or on his shoulder and it's all too graphic that Murphy is a boy touch starved. Even if Gustus would be the only one to know. 

He bounces down the stairs of their shitty apartment, clothes dark as a permanent funeral for the boy he used to be and for the father that boy used to have and - and he sees his mother sprawled out on the floor. 

See, this is not normal as his mother turned to alcohol and hasn't looked back since, seeing that he has no mother either - she had always said his father's death was his fault, maybe she was making sure he had no mother as revenge - so finding her passed out on the ground isn't as strange as it should be. 

The problem comes when he realizes her lips are blue. _Alcohol poisoning,_ he thinks terrified, _overdose_ \- he runs over to their home-phone before truly considering the situation or letting the fear overtake him and picks it up to call the police. 

The home phone is more or less a grey brick, looking ripped directly from the 90s and the Scream movie, John had described it to his visiting boyfriend once before but it still functions properly. Still dials 9-1-1 and connects him to dispatch. 

Despite his general distrust for police, the calm and steady sound of a woman's voice places a warmth back into him, places his heartbeat back in his throat and the disconnection is gone, "9-1-1, how -" 

"My mom," he pants into the phone, knows it's the edges of a panic attack rather than being out of breath but continues, "She's...Her... I think she's dead." 

The woman seems to be stuck for a moment before asking, "Honey, what's your name?" 

His head spins - he wants to yell at her _WHAT'S THE FUCKING POINT OF THAT?_ but he knows it's her job to de-escalate the situation and a teenage boy about to have a panic attack is in need of comfort. He hates that he wants the comfort, "John." 

"John, can you tell me what happened?" She answers in that even way they have to be good at. 

"Mom," he forces himself to swallow and uncurls his fists, "Mom drinks a lot. Came down to her, lips are blue, skin's pale." 

"My name's Echo, okay, John?" The girl murmurs into the phone, "Police are on their way. Do you want to do me a favor?" 

Her voice is calming, like the piano music he listens to when he writes essays or like the sway of the wind in trees. He wonders what she looks like as he nods before remembering the lack of visibility in a phone call, "Yeah." 

"Yeah? Do you know how to check a pulse?" Echo leads carefully and he follows, feeling both too in his body and too outside of it to be of any real use - it feels like when he had heard the news his father was dead. 

He murmurs, "I'll check her pulse." 

"Good." Echo concludes and Murphy feels himself starting to calm down a little, either at the calm of her voice or at the safety of being just out-of-body enough to function. 

When he turns around, his mother is sitting up and it rolls over Murphy like a wave, like he's drowning, like he's having the worst panic attack of his life and he can't find anything to hold him down. It isn't good. 

It should be good but it isn't. 

Her eyes are blue. 

While many people had alleged that in attitude, John Murphy took after his mother - a statement he hoped was not true when it came to the bottle - and somewhat in appearance, borrowing her hooked nose and her dark hair, Alex Murphy's eyes were blue - hers were brown. 

Her eyes were brown with no riddle of death in the orbs but as she stares at him, still partially laying down on the floor, that is all he sees. He clutches his throat with it, feeling as though he cannot breathe again and as he stares into her orbs, he knows he cannot trust it. 

The spiral and ache of death exists in the cool neon blue of her eyes and in that moment, Murphy feels his whole body seize up as though on the primal, body ready to handle it even if his mind hasn't computed the entire situation. 

_She's dead,_ he knows with a weird sort of calm, _she's dead but she's alive and - and -_

Her mouth opens, garbled noise of hunger escaping and his body knows her intention, sewn in with something primal from lifetimes before himself. 

He cracks her over the head with the phone, not once, not twice but he loses count after seven strikes, after seven hefty strikes with the phone to the top of the skull, caving it in as well as the brick matter of their home-phone. 

He hits and he hits and he hits until the phone breaks, until his hands and body are painted in her blood, until her skull is distorted and she's no longer making hungry noises, until the police sirens whisper faintly in his ear and until the police are pulling him off of her. 

While he was sobbing while doing it, he isn't when they drag him from his shitty, childhood home in handcuffs, in front of a news broadcast that feels all too much like watching himself in a movie. 

He still doesn't understand. 

The arresting officer hears the murmur of, _"She was dead, but she was alive **enough**."_ over fifty times. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this! Kudos and comments are appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoy, please let me know through comments and kudos!


End file.
